Unlocked
by Elisabeth Hill
Summary: From that moment on, he was a madman. For a prompt asking for an AU where Kozmotis was driven mad by the fearlings, but was stopped before he could open the door. Contains Victorian attitudes towards mental illness and treatment; nothing too brutal, but it's not very pleasant either.
1. Chapter 1

The door is locked.

Of course the door is locked. The door is always locked. The door should _stay_ locked, shouldn't it?

But this lock is on the other side.

Why is the lock on the other side?

Why is he locked inside?

_Why is he inside?_

_WHY IS HE INSIDE THE PRISON_

Both fists _slam_ against the door, over and over, and the impact shudders up his arms but the door holds, of _course_ the door holds, the door is Pookan-made of darkest lead and held up to all of the Fearling armies, it won't give under the onslaught of one man _too weak to leave it locked, how would you be inside if you hadn't opened the door?_ There's blood trickling down his arms and he rams the door with his shoulder instead, throwing his whole body into the attempt even as he knows it won't do any good. The walls are swarming with shadows and it won't be long before they're on him, and what they'll do to their jailer now that they have a chance for revenge he doesn't know, but it won't be pleasant, and his assault on the door grows sloppy in his frantic haste –

There's a voice. A voice a voice _a voice_ on the other side and for an instant he freezes, _what if this is a trick_, he wouldn't put it past them, making him think he's locked inside with them and has to open the door to get out. His laugh is low and dark as he backs away from the door, runs a hand through his hair and blinks when blood trickles into his eyes.

"General?"

He can't stop laughing. Oh yes, they think they're so clever, but they can't fool _him_. Not even – not when she was screaming, screaming, screaming _so loud_ that he can hear the echoes even now –

"General!"

And that's when the laughter stops, because something's rattling, small and metallic and _the door is opening, why is the door opening, you'll let them out you'll let them in you'll let me out why am I in the prison_

_THE DOOR MUST STAY CLOSED_

There's a scream from the other side when he slams into the door again, forcing it shut, a short yelp quickly aborted. He's heard all the screams, he's something of a connoisseur by now, and he lets it slip by like nothing but another tempting threatening whisper on the wind. He leans back against the door, and ignores its rattling as whatever is on the other side tries to push it open. He is the guard, and he will do his duty. The door _must _stay closed.

The shadows in the corners curl and reach out, and he shuts his eyes but he can still feel them, cold as deep space and soft as a promise, leaving their trails of dark all along his skin. But – if they are here, in here with him, then what's out there?

Footsteps. Running footsteps are out there, and a lot of them. At least four men, he judges cautiously, possibly five. It's hard to tell through the echoes and the whispers. And a second voice. "What's the matter?"

"I don't know! He was fine when I left him, but when I came by to check again he just – he started pounding on the door, out of nowhere, and when I went to see what had got him so agitated he slammed it shut on me!"

He shouldn't be listening to this. They lie so cleverly, they can sound so convincing. So like someone you once knew, someone important, someone –

Someone's taken his locket.

_Someone_ has _taken_ his _locket_.

The cry tears out of him before he can think, wordless and furious and heartbroken, and the voices on the other side stop abruptly. He doesn't pay them any attention _they're nothing but illusions anyway_, frantically scouring the room for any telltale gleam of silver. The roiling shadows have no mouths but he swears he can feel them smiling. It doesn't matter. None of it matters. _Someone has taken his locket_ and there will be _hell_ to pay.

The door swings open, nearly knocking him off his feet, and he finds himself face-to-face with –

Not a monster. Not a Fearling. Not a shadow. Just a man. A man in a black coat, his eyes wide and widening farther, who swears under his breath.

And suddenly the whole jumble falls together into something that almost looks like a pattern. Of course he was inside the prison. It was made to hold the Fearlings and the nightmares, after all. And if they aren't on the outside, then they must be _inside_. In here. With him. _In_ him.

_The door should have stayed closed._

"Kozmotis?" the man in the black coat asks, and his voice is gentle, like someone talking to a scared horse, or coaxing someone off a ledge.

The smile that splits his face doesn't feel right, it's too jagged and too tight. But that suits, because that name doesn't feel right either, it's too bright, almost blinding. "No."

The man's face falls, and he sighs. "And he was doing so well, too." He steps back, raising a hand, and the men who step into his place are large and not unkind but not gentle either when they grip him, one by each arm, and pin him against the bed. He thrashes, tries to throw them off, but hammering the door has left him exhausted and a moment later the man in the black coat bends over him and something sharp pricks the inside of his arm and "Something to help you sleep, General" and the shadows are laughing, their silent voices whispering against the back of his skull as they always have, for as long as he can remember.

There was something important, something he was looking for, but his mouth won't frame the words, his mind won't frame the thought, he is unraveling into the dark and it draws him gladly into its welcoming arms. For the barest sliver of an instant, there is a face, a familiar face, bending over him, white against the dark, young and soft and sweet and kind and good, and she presses the lightest of airy butterfly kisses to his forehead before his eyes flicker closed.

He sleeps, and does not dream.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time she visits, they tell her that the restraints are to keep him from harming himself.

It seems impossible to imagine that he could – or would – do so, until they bring her to the door of his cell, a room, barely furnished, which she notices has been skillfully divested of all small parts and sharp edges. Suddenly, she's no longer just eager to see her father again, no matter what; in fact, she feels a little like she wants to throw up.

The man sitting on the bed looks unkempt, hair shaggy and hanging in deeply-shadowed eyes, several days' worth of beard growing in straggly unkempt strands from his chin, which is pressed nearly into his chest. He looks up at the sound of keys in the lock, just for a second, before turning back to glare at the ground, and doesn't acknowledge the doctor when he tries to introduce her.

"Daddy?" she tries, anyway, and he looks up, that shuttered face opening for the space of one brief shining instant, and she sees recognition flicker in the depths of those sunken eyes. For that one, brief second, everything is as it should be.

And then recognition turns to anger, and he recoils violently, as though she'd struck him. She reaches out, barely thinking, and he flinches away from her hand. She freezes, motionless, wondering how it all went so wrong so quickly, as he shouts, "Don't touch me!"

"Daddy, it's me," she says, as calmly and as soothingly as she can, and something that sounds halfway between a laugh and a sob bubbles up out of his throat.

"No. No, you're a trick. An illusion. You must be running out of ideas, if you're falling back on _her_ again!" he shouts, and for a second she sees her father in this stranger's wild eyes, a hint of the steely temper he tried his best to hold in check around her, and she can't help a little sob of her own.

"You won't fool me again," he says, and then he says no more.

As he's leading her out, the doctor tells her that this is the most responsive her father has been in weeks.

…

The eighth time she visits, they tell her that the restraints are to keep him from harming anyone else.

"We tried the new shock therapy," Dr. Andronicus tells her, as he leads her down the hall. "It – ah – did not have quite the hoped-for effect."

She wants to ask what effect it _did_ have, but they've reached the cell, and she can already see for herself, even before he says a word.

This is not her father. This is not the man who would pick her up and piggyback her around on his shoulders, leading imaginary cavalry charges to rescue kidnapped tsareviches. This is not the man who would attempt to sing her lullabies before bed on those rare nights he was there to tuck her in, steadfastly ignoring her giggles at the unintentional gymnastics his voice would perform. This is not the man who taught her how to swing a sword, how to bake a cake, how not to care for a houseplant. This is not the man who held her so tightly on the night that the news about her mother came that she thought he seemed like a drowning man clinging to a line, not the man who let her hold him even tighter after the funeral while she cried and cried.

The stranger wearing her father's face smiles, and it's the most terrifying thing she's ever seen.

"You've brought me his daughter? Oh, how _sweet_. Are you going to try to cure me with the power of love, now?"

"Daddy," she tries, anyway, even though saying that word to this creature feels like spitting on a grave.

The smile just grows wider. She takes a step backwards.

"She's smarter than you are," the stranger says to the doctor, who huffs noisily. "She knows when to be afraid."

"And how are you feeling today, General?" Dr. Andronicus retorts, drawing a hiss out of the stranger in her father's skin. She's suddenly very glad he's wrapped in a straightjacket, buckled to the bed.

"Persistent, aren't you?" He turns to look at her, meets her gaze and holds it when he says, "Kozmotis Pitchiner is gone. And he won't be coming back."

She's shaking as they leave, and she isn't sure if it's from rage, or fear, or grief.

…

The seventeenth time she visits, he isn't restrained.

"We've had marvelous luck with some experimental stardust treatments," Dr. Andronicus tells her, pouring her a cup of tea. "This 'Pitch' character seems to have been almost entirely suppressed, and I don't need to tell you what a relief _that_ is."

She accepts the tea and the comment in silence. They both know that's not the only damage that needs to be undone.

That's when the door opens, and the orderly ushers her father in.

He's dressed, clean-shaven, his hair brushed and tied back at the nape of his neck. His shoulders still slope more than they ever did before, his stiff military posture completely wrecked, but he carries himself with the same pride she remembers. He thanks the orderly when the man leads him to the chair across from her, and thanks Dr. Andronicus when the doctor hands him a cup of tea.

"Daddy?" she whispers, and he looks up, meets her gaze.

His eyes are still shadowed, and will likely always be. But underneath the haunted look, they are the same eyes she remembers, full of nothing but love.

"Seraphina," he breathes, and for the first time, gives her a genuine smile.

She can't help the smile that spreads across her face in response. "I missed you."

"I missed you too," he says. "Did you know that I've gone mad?"

The laughter refuses to be kept down, and she has to set her teacup back in its saucer to keep from spilling any. The doctor shoots her a glare, but her father is laughing too, and that's all that matters, _her father_ is sitting across from her and laughing at nothing as if he'd never been away.

"I might have heard," she says, once the overwhelming urge to laugh passes, dabbing tears from the corners of her eyes.

"How have you been?" her father asks, earnestly. "How's your mother?"

She drops her handkerchief. "Daddy…" She takes a deep breath, steels herself. "She's been dead for ten years."

The look he gives her is puzzled, and she braces herself for what he'll say next. But she still isn't prepared. "I know. That's why I asked you."

The only sound in the study is the quiet china _click_ of Dr. Andronicus setting his cup back in its saucer.

"Daddy," she says, and she leans over and takes his hand in her own. He starts, pulls back, before reaching out and grasping both her hands in his. She looks directly into his eyes, _willing_ him to understand, to _believe_, but after just the barest sliver of time he shakes his head as if he can't quite believe the evidence of his senses.

"I heard them. What they did to you -" His grip on her hands is suddenly unbearably tight, and she struggles to breathe evenly, shaking her head at the orderly who steps forward to intercede. "I heard you screaming."

"That wasn't me. Daddy, I'm here," she begs, wishing he'd look at her again. He's staring resolutely at his teacup, but he hasn't let go yet. She has to hope that that's a good sign. "I'm not dead. I'm here, and I'm real."

And then he does look at her, and she almost wishes he hadn't. She'd never wanted to see her father cry again, and the way he smiles at her through the tears does nothing to make her feel any better.

"I know," he sighs. "That's what you always say."


End file.
